PERMACULTURE BUSINESS FORUM

WHAT

• A gathering of professional permaculture practitioners coming together
• to share their successes and challenges in conducting integrative
• ecological design and/or build services for a livelihood.

WHY

• We gather to support and develop the community of
• business-oriented permaculture practitioners - to identify
• challenges and opportunities across the range of
• designers/builders, to share techniques and examples, and to
• accelerate succession of the permaculture field as a whole. The
• gathering is for people who want to connect with others towards
• expanding the capacity of permaculture as professional practice
• in their own lives and the world.

WHO

• • In an effort to create an optimal forum for
• professionally-practicing permaculture designer/builders, the
• gathering is for people who:
  • • Work professionally, at least part time, for their livelihood
  • in the field of permaculture design & implementation, and/or
  • • Practice permaculture in their daily lives, tending a
  • landscape they've designed and developed.

• • The forum will be based, in part, around presentations by each
• participant of a project that they've designed and
• built/installed for a client. Each presentation will cover site
• opportunities, challenges, lessons learned during and after the
• project, key points of success or challenge within the project
• design/development and evolution. The project presentation
• should make clear what the site is intended to be in years 1, 5,
• and 20 years.

HOW: FORUM INITIATION AND COMMITMENT

• • As a means to initiate and prepare for this intensive 2-day
• forum, please submit:
  • • (1) Summaries of 2 professionally delivered permaculture designs
  • • (2) Overview of a permaculture system where you have lived, worked, and learned.

• • This exercise is dual purpose....to initiate a process of
• reflection for forum discussions and exercises, and help
• ascertain if this forum is appropriate to your experience base.

WHEN

• Time and Date to be determined - please send in possible time periods if you are interested.
• Arrival: 1:00pm
• 1.75 days, 1 night
• Departure: 6:00pm

WHERE: THE SITE

• • 66 Deans Mountain Road, Deans Mountain, Moretown VT
• • There will be on-site camping with swimming. Food's potluck and one meal provided.
• • A site site fee of $25 to help cover expenses.
  • • Meals:
    • • Dinner (Potluck)
    • • Breakfast (Potluck), Lunch (Provided), Dinner (at American Flatbread)
• • Participants provide potluck dish for dinner (if your last name starts A-L) or breakfast (last names M-Z)
  • • Refrigeration available, though bring a cooler if you can to prevent overload.
• Lunch will be provided at Deans Mountain out of the site fee.
• American Flatbread wood fired pizzas topped with local fare on Friday
• evening for those who want to linger in the Valley and eat some good
• local fare.
• Possibility of doing some site visits in VT over the weekend: Teal
• Farm, Food Forestry in Plainfield, etc.

Want to come? Sign up here!

Name	Business/Organization	Design 01	Design 02	Pc Site Desc
Ben Falk, Kristen Getler, Cornelius Murphy, Buzz Ferver, and others	Whole Systems Design	Schematic design for 4 micro-farms and community gardens on 75 acres in Warren, VT	Edible windbreak layout	A 10 acre site of heavy clay and boulders with a very high water table over 60-70% and generally thin to ledgy soils over the rest. About 5 acres is old field and 5 acres is 30-40 year old northern hardwoods and white pine. Moderate to low angle slopes and the occasional cliff face offer interesting forms to work with. We are working with water by exposing the table in ponds and have been largely focusing on soil building for the past 3 years. We are trying various edge species like prunus avium, cornus mas, asimina triloba and others. So far it's been surprising how much has survived. We are also focusing on fuel wood and biomass production via r. pseudoacacia, alnus rugosa, and various salix species.
Ethan Roland	AppleSeed Permaculture	Schematic master plan for 150-acre mixed-use residential/commercial/civic/agricultural development.	Home-scale edible forest garden and ecological landscape design.	Forest Garden Research Center, Nassau, NY: 1/4 ac intensive FG planted 2006, 100+ edible and useful species. 1 ac agroforestry ecosystem with chestnuts, pawpaws, persimmons, mulberries, and asian pears on wide spacing with pasture between - keyline plowing planned fall 2008. Perimeter windbreaks, perennial polyculture patches for forest garden research, small earth pond, nursery beds.
Rafter T. Sass	The Social Landscape	Mycoscape Manual Killingsworth Farm: Large residential forest garden, perennial vegetable garden, and integrated mycoscaping (see E. Roland Design 02 - joint collaboration)	Taylor Homestead: Whole-project consultation for broadscale site development for 60 acre. residential/educational site.	Lived, worked, and learned on many permaculture sites, from Earthaven Ecovillage to Rhizome Collective to Regeneration CSA. What I haven't had is a site at which I had any influence over the long-term development.
Alissa C White		Permaculture demonstration slope installed by my students in spring 2006 at UCSC's Alan Chadwick Garden	Lizard Ranch 2008: Remediation of steep, southfacing slope with little vegetation and heavy clay deposits.... turning an erosion problem into the potential for winter tomatoes and fruiting bananas	100 acres on two sides of a ridgeline 10 miles from the Monterey Bay. Existing ranch house was built as innovative apple storage 100 years ago for the Laurel Glen Fruit Farm. Site now features various low impact living structures (yurt, yome, wall tents, strawbale construction), humanure composting, collective purchasing power, educational events, chickens, ducks, gourmet oysters, ceramics studio, vegetable gardens, greenhouse, workshop spaces, cut flowers, and an emerging food forest under 100 year old avocado and olive trees. 12 residents.
Jono Neiger	Regenerative Design			Two projects here are 1. Forest Moon, a cancer survivor retreat center currently being fundraised for, and 2. Hickory Garden photo, my small homestead in progress in Leverett, MA